Venture into the lime forest in the Jura, it’s like opening a book. Invite yourself into a tale, that of your childhood, of Bambi, of the possible dream, of an adventure sprinkled with an almost mystical dimension. But also the reminder of an eternal fight to survive it. He was the symbol, an enigma, sometimes the fruit of the imagination for those who dreamed of meeting him for several years, even furtively, without succeeding. Vincent, the big and majestic stag with 20 antlers, “the most beautiful in Europe”, is dead. His body was found in the 22,000 hectare forest a few days ago, fallen from old age.
“Just talking about it gives me the hairs on my arms,” confides to 20 minutes THE journalist Theo Denmat. I cried when I learned of Vincent’s death. It’s weird, it affects everyone who has seen it. It’s something that stays.” The one who got down to it two years ago for the magazine Society, to write article on hunters of lost antlers of deer, accuses the sad news. “Until the end, he therefore escaped the bullets of hunters and poachers. The king is dead, vice the king! », he even wrote on his Twitter account.
“Vincent deer antlers were considered the Grail”
In February 2021, Théo Denmat went to the forest of Chaux. It is, in fact, at this time of the year that deer shed their antlers. Moult collectors, those adventurers in the woods, are snapping them up. And “Vincent deer antlers were considered the Grail” by them. Imagine, woods with 20 points, maybe even 24, almost two meters long forming a phantasmagoric sail. It is in the company of an expert in the field, Gilles Megadaremy, the man from the region who had found Vincent’s woods two years earlier, as well as a photographer of his writing, that Théo Denmat had gone deep into the forest in search of a thousand wonders. The antler specialist “had spent the year identifying the places where Vincent slept, without telling the others of course”, jokes Théo Denmat. The wood hunt, “it’s a bit like a fool’s game, a treasure hunt for adults,” he smiles.
And the magic moment had arrived: “We walked all day and we finally saw him. It was at the end of the afternoon, near a castle, finally close to the houses, not at all deep in the forest contrary to what one might think. Gilles Megadaremy had pointed his finger at 30 meters. “A very small head had appeared in the forest, a very fine, very feminine thing, I wouldn’t know how to explain it, with its immense antlers which were lost in the branches. It was crazy. We tried to get closer, we never succeeded, he disappeared… ”
Vincent chose whether or not we could photograph him
It was the only appearance for the young journalist, but the moment marked him for life. As for anyone, those who had the chance to meet Vincent, something was happening at that time: “He had shown himself to us, at the end of the day, in the shade of a castle, cathedral on the skull. » A wildlife photographer, Olivier Trible, had even confided later to the journalist that it was Vincent who chose whether or not we could photograph him. “There was a slightly surreal side to it all. I don’t really know, or why he was mystified like that. “You are now the soul of this forest, thank you for everything,” wrote on his Facebook page Olivier Trible on Vincent’s death.
If the conflicting relations with the National Office of Forests (the deer eat the shoots of oak trees in particular), obliges the latter to take measures to protect the trees, the fate reserved for the deer alerts the friends of the deer, whose Flag, Vincent. Also, in the face of ONF regulations, deemed too severe and unacceptable, an online petition to stop “the elimination of deer in the forest of Chaux” was signed by nearly 72,000 people. “Naming this deer Vincent was also a way of protecting him,” continues Théo Denmat. To give it a name was to make it known, and therefore when a hunter has it in the sights, he knows, ”he says, even if, traditionally, first names or denominations, are not uncommon. “In the past, lots of deer that roamed the forest were named. There was the scarred, the terrible, the fiery… The big 12 also, with its 24 points, accompanied Vincent. It was a duet. The big 12 moved with a cow step, while Vincent had a doe step. There was a bouncer and a dancer. »
The big 12 has since disappeared, for no known reason, two years ago. “We never found him, swallowed by the forest. And Vincent found himself alone. It’s crazy that he managed to survive, to escape the bullets, explains the journalist. Deer almost twenty years old, that no longer exists. I think some had it in sight but didn’t shoot, spared it. He had a somewhat protected status perhaps. »
“We said it came out of a Miyazaki film”
“He would have died before if he hadn’t had this extraordinary side, confides to 20 minutes Oliver Trible. Not all deer die a beautiful death. He knew how to thwart ambushes. “I followed him over his last two years of slab, for nights. He knew very well that I was lying in wait 30 meters from his place of slab. He was the king of shadows, details the nostalgic photographer. When there were no more lights, when I could no longer photograph him, when I lowered the camera, at that moment he appeared. So he let me listen to him. »
Another report on the after Vincent for Théo Denmat? “No, delivers the journalist. You don’t have to edit it. It’s strangely a story that we keep for ourselves, it’s precious as a souvenir, we tell it to our loved ones, like a treasure hunt. Be that as it may, Vincent has not finished making people dream. “I can’t say why, but he’s a person who touches, and when we talk about him, everyone tells you that he’s a special being. It was said to have come out of a Miyazaki film. I was lucky to see it, and indeed, two years later, it is perhaps the paper that marked me the most in my life as a journalist. »
A deer “like an apparition, a ghost” that those who had the chance to meet him will not forget and who turned the last page of the book of his tale, forever.